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refugees international
Fears of ‘Cataclysmic’ Refugee Crisis Grow as 3.2 Million Iranians Already Displaced by US-Israeli War
"If this evolves into a long-term war, and particularly if internal conflict emerges in Iran, the humanitarian consequences could worsen dramatically," said the president of Refugees International.
Mar 12, 2026
In less than two weeks, the US-Israeli war in Iran has caused a displacement crisis that Refugees International warns is "on course for cataclysmic civilian harm, displacement, and humanitarian need," amid repeated strikes on civilian sites and infrastructure.
As many as 3.2 million people are estimated to be temporarily displaced inside Iran, according to a report released Thursday by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Most of those who've been forced to flee their homes have been in Tehran and other urban centers, where US and Israeli airstrikes have been the heaviest, the report said.
Since the war was launched on February 28, Iranian authorities and humanitarian groups have reported widespread attacks on civilian areas and infrastructure by US and Israeli forces.
The Iranian Red Crescent Society reported on Wednesday that nearly 20,000 civilian buildings, including at least 16,000 residential units, have been affected by strikes, along with 77 healthcare facilities and 65 schools.
About 200 children in Iran are among approximately 1,300 killed and 9,000 injured in less than two weeks of war, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), which cited figures from national authorities.
"The war launched by the United States and Israel against Iran has been characterized by multiple strikes on civilian sites and infrastructure by all sides, often with flagrant disregard for civilian safety," said Jeremy Konyndyk, the president of Refugees International, on Wednesday. "The United States/Israeli coalition has struck numerous civilian sites in Iran, and the Iranian military has struck multiple civilian sites in Israel and in multiple Gulf countries."
"These attacks on civilians have already caused hundreds of needless deaths and displaced hundreds of thousands of people," he added. "The humanitarian impact could expand exponentially if this develops into a prolonged war."
The deadliest single attack on civilians has been the bombing of the Minab elementary school in southern Iran on the first day of the war, where at least 175 people, mostly girls ages 7-12, were massacred. Preliminary findings of an investigation by the Pentagon reportedly indicate that the United States was responsible for the attack. Konyndyk said it was "likely the largest number of child casualties in a single US military attack since the My Lai massacre in Vietnam in 1968."
"But the Minab strike is far from the only strike on civilian sites. US and Israeli attacks have struck other schools, multiple medical facilities, numerous residential areas, and a water desalination plant. Iranian attacks have also struck civilian targets and infrastructure, including a desalination plant and urban residential areas," Kondynyk said. "All such sites are protected under international humanitarian law (IHL), raising the serious prospect that these strikes could constitute war crimes."
He added that "It is difficult to regard the pattern of US strikes on civilian sites as mere tragic accidents when the United States has systematically removed many of the safeguards that once helped prevent harm to civilians."
He condemned comments by US Secretary Pete Hegseth dismissing the "stupid rules of engagement" and his closure of a Pentagon office tasked with preventing civilian harm in order to maximize "lethality," according to a recent investigation by ProPublica.
Hegseth emphasized last week that the United States was not planning to take in a, "new wave of Middle Eastern refugees” that might be forced to flee the region by continued attacks on Iran and other countries.
The Trump administration has let in virtually zero refugees from anywhere in the world since October, with the exception of white South Africans.
There are already around 25 million people living in the Middle East who are considered refugees, internally displaced, or had recently been returned after being displaced.
The defense secretary has said countries in the region are "capable" of handling the new influx of potentially millions more displaced people, even as the US has drastically reduced funds for international organizations that administer humanitarian aid and refugee resettlement.
There are more than 1.65 million refugees living in Iran, around 750,000 of whom are from Afghanistan. Kondynyk noted that many of them already "have limited access to their rights or safe passage and already face rights violations and scapegoating by the Iranian state."
More than 800,000 people in Lebanon have been forced to flee their homes this month, according to Lebanese authorities, following Israeli orders clearing over 100 villages in the south and outside Beirut.
Meanwhile, the vast majority of Gaza's nearly 2 million people still remain displaced after more than two years of genocidal war waged by Israel, which destroyed most civilian infrastructure, according to the International Organization for Migration.
"If this evolves into a long-term war, and particularly if internal conflict emerges in Iran, the humanitarian consequences could worsen dramatically," Kondynyk said. "A prolonged conflict risks creating displacement and humanitarian crises on a massive scale, even as US cuts have kneecapped the global humanitarian system built to respond to such crises."
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Critics Urge Senate to Reject Trump's Deadly Rescission Package, Regardless of AIDS Funding
One humanitarian leader pointed out that the bill contains $1.3 billion in cuts to initiatives "every bit as lifesaving" as the AIDS prevention program that Republicans spared amid public pressure.
Jul 15, 2025
Progressives and public health advocates on Tuesday were among those urging U.S. senators to vote against Republican legislation that would let President Donald Trump claw back billions of dollars already appropriated by Congress, even as GOP lawmakers ditched plans to cut funding for an HIV-AIDS prevention program that has saved tens of millions of lives in Africa.
Politico reported that Senate Republicans will remove $400 million in funding cuts to the President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), an initiative of former President George W. Bush credited with saving more than 25 million lives in Africa since its implementation in 2003.
However, the rescission package—a version of which was passed last month by the House of Representatives—still includes $1.3 billion in cuts to humanitarian aid programs that Jeremy Konyndyk, president of the advocacy group Refugees International, called "every bit as lifesaving as PEPFAR."
These include programs to fund public health, emergency food and shelter assistance, peacekeeping, economic development, and other essential aid that helps stabilize war- and disaster-stricken populations in the Global South.
"Even though the Senate has removed $400 million in PEPFAR funding from the rescissions package, another $500 million in global health funding could still be cut," Think Global Health managing editor Nsikan Akpan noted Tuesday.
Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought said Tuesday that the White House has agreed to an exemption for PEPFAR funding via a substitute amendment.
"It's substantially the same package and the Senate has to work its will and we've appreciated the work along the way to get to a place where they've got the votes," he explained.
Jacob Leibenluft and Devin O'Connor, respectively senior adviser and senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, noted that in addition to cuts to critical programs, the rescission package, combined with the Trump administration's wider campaign of unlawfully impounding funds, "could also make it far more difficult for Congress to fund the government in a bipartisan way in the future."
As the pair explained:
Most of the funds in the rescission package were enacted in March legislation that was passed by Congress—including on a bipartisan basis in the Senate—and signed into law by the president to fund the government for the rest of fiscal year 2025. To provide the 60 votes required to avoid a Senate filibuster, at least eight Democratic senators needed to join with 52 Republican senators to invoke cloture on the funding bill.
But presidential rescission requests operate under different rules and require only 51 votes to pass the Senate, so no Democratic votes are needed. If the Senate approves the package (which passed the House on a party-line vote), this would show that Republicans could quickly revise on a partisan basis, with merely 51 votes in the Senate, a bipartisan funding agreement reached only a few months earlier that required support from no fewer than 60 senators.
"Senators should keep those consequences in mind as they consider the president's current rescission request," Leibenluft and O'Connor advised.
The consumer advocacy group Public Citizen cited both PEPFAR and the billions of dollars in other cuts to foreign aid contained in the package as reasons to oppose it.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) took aim at the bill's $1.1 billion in cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which funds PBS and NPR.
"Like all authoritarians, Trump doesn't like criticism or objective reporting. He just wants flattery," the senator said on social media. "That's why he wants to defund NPR and PBS. We need media in this country that is not owned by billionaires and corporate interests. I will vote to support public broadcasting."
The chairs of the Congressional Tri-Caucus—Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus Chair Grace Meng (D-N.Y.), Congressional Black Caucus Chair Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.), and Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chair Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.)—on Tuesday led a letter urging senators to reject the rescissions bill due to CPB cuts.
"CPB's elimination would decimate public media infrastructure, as the vast majority of its funding goes directly to local stations, many of which rely on it for over half their operating budgets," the lawmakers wrote. "In rural and tribal areas, this would shut down stations that serve as lifelines for public safety, education, and culturally relevant programming. Eighty percent of Native American and Alaska Native communities are rural or remote, and public television is often the only station reaching them consistently."
Polling published Tuesday by Data for Progress revealed that the proposed cuts in the rescission package are deeply unpopular, with a majority of respondents saying that funding for global health programs, public broadcasting, and developmental aid should be maintained at current levels or increased.
NEW: As Senate Republicans approach the Friday deadline to pass Trump’s rescissions package, voters reject the proposed billions of dollars in cuts to global aid and public broadcasting.We find that less than 30% of voters want cuts to these programs.www.dataforprogress.org/datasets/pol...
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— Data for Progress (@dataforprogress.org) July 15, 2025 at 6:54 AM
GOP senators—who are under pressure, as the proposed cuts must be approved by Friday under the Impoundment Control Act (ICA) of 1974, the law they are using to skirt a Democratic filibuster—say they hope to pass the entire package before next month's summer recess.
On Monday, a coalition of 24 states and the District of Columbia sued the Trump administration, alleging it violated the ICA and demanding the release of $6.8 billion in approved education funds that the suit argues have been illegally withheld.
"Courts across the country have made it clear to Donald Trump that he and his administration do not have the authority to unilaterally block funding that Congress has already approved," Democratic Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said in a statement. "These education grants are designed to help Michigan students thrive. By freezing them, the Trump White House is not just breaking the law but jeopardizing our kids' future."
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Sanders Slams 'War Criminal' Netanyahu Ahead of New Meeting With Trump to Plan Gaza Ethnic Cleansing
The progressive senator underscored that the Israeli leader has been indicted by the International Criminal Court "for overseeing the systematic killing and starvation of civilians in Gaza."
Jul 08, 2025
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders sharply criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday as the fugitive from the International Criminal Court met with lawmakers ahead of a second White House meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump to advance plans for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the embattled Gaza Strip.
"As President Trump and members of Congress roll out the red carpet for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, let's remember that Netanyahu has been indicted as a war criminal by the International Criminal Court for overseeing the systematic killing and starvation of civilians in Gaza," Sanders (I-Vt.) said in a statement.
"This is the man Trump and Congress are welcoming this week: a war criminal who will be remembered as one of modern history's monsters," the senator continued. "His extremist government has killed more than 57,000 Palestinians and wounded almost 135,000, 60% of whom are women, children, or elderly people. The United Nations reports that at least 17,000 children have been killed and more than 25,000 wounded. More than 3,000 children in Gaza have had one or more limbs amputated."
"At this moment, hundreds of thousands of people are starving after Israel prevented any aid from entering Gaza for nearly three months," Sanders noted. "In the last six weeks, Israel has allowed a trickle of aid to get in, but has tried to replace the established United Nations distribution system with a private foundation backed by security contractors. This has been a catastrophe, with near-daily massacres at the new aid distribution sites. In its first five weeks in operation, 640 people have been killed and at least 4,488 injured while trying to access food through this mechanism."
Trump and Netanyahu—who said Monday that he nominated the U.S. president for the Nobel Peace Prize—are expected to discuss ongoing efforts to reach a new deal to secure the release of the 22 remaining Israeli and other hostages held by Hamas since the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, as well as plans for giving Gazans what the prime minister described as a "better future" by finding third countries willing to accept forcibly displaced Palestinians.
Critics said such euphemistic language is an attempt to give cover to Israel's plan to ethnically cleanse and indefinitely occupy Gaza. Observers expressed alarm over Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz' Tuesday affirmation of a plan to force all Palestinians in Gaza into a camp at the southern tip of the strip.
"There is no such thing as voluntary displacement amongst a population that has been under constant bombardment for nearly two years and has been cut off from essential aid," Jeremy Konyndyk, president of the advocacy group Refugees International and a former senior official at the U.S. Agency for International Development, told Reuters.
Most Palestinians are vehemently opposed to what they say would amount to a second Nakba, the forced displacement of more than 750,000 people from Palestine during and after the 1948 establishment of the modern state of Israel.
"This is our land," one Palestinian man, Mansour Abu Al-Khaier, told The Times of Israel on Tuesday. "Who would we leave it to, where would we go?"
Another Gazan, Abu Samir el-Fakaawi, told the newspaper: "I will not leave Gaza. This is my country. Our children who were martyred in the war are buried here. Our families. Our friends. Our cousins. We are all buried here. Whether Trump or Netanyahu or anyone else likes it or not, we are staying on this land."
Officials at the United Nations—whose judicial body, the International Court of Justice, is weighing a genocide case against Israel brought by South Africa and supported by around two dozen countries—condemned any forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza.
"This raises concerns with regards to forcible transfer—the concept of voluntary transfers in the context that we are seeing in Gaza right now [is] very questionable," Ravina Shamdasani, a spokesperson for the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said Tuesday.
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Peace Institute Vows Legal Action to Oppose 'Illegal Takeover' by DOGE
"If DOGE can do this to USIP, what's to stop them from breaking into offices of other NGOs that receive U.S. funds? Or law firms or media that annoy the president?" said one humanitarian advocate.
Mar 18, 2025
Representatives of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency on Monday entered the headquarters with of the U.S. Institute of Peace with the help of D.C. police, according to the institute's staff—and now USIP's acting president, who was fired by the institute's newly configured board, is vowing to take legal action.
Fired acting president George Moose, who is challenging his removal, told The Associated Press on Monday, "What has happened here today is an illegal takeover by elements of the executive branch of a private nonprofit."
To CNN, Moose said that the institute intends to "vigorously" oppose DOGE's actions in court. "We are confident of our legal status, and we are confident that a court that gives us a hearing will be persuaded by the strength of our legal argument," he told the outlet.
The dramatic showdown on Monday follows an executive order signed by U.S. President Donald Trump in February that called for "the nonstatutory components and functions" of select "governmental entities"—including USiP—to "be eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law."
USIP, whose mission is to promote peace and end conflict abroad, is an independent organization that was created by Congress in 1984. Representatives from USIP contend that because the institute is a congressionally chartered nonprofit, Musk and Trump do not have the power to dismantle it, according to the The New York Times.
On Friday, the White House told all but three members of USIP's board they were fired and its remaining members—Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and president of the National Defense University Peter Garvin—replaced Moose with Kenneth Jackson, a State Department official who, per the Times, was involved in the Trump administration's targeting of the now largely hollowed out U.S. Agency for International Development. USIP does not view Jackson's appointment as legal, per CNN.
DOGE representatives unsuccessfully tried to gain access to the USIP building twice on Friday, the second time with FBI agents in toe, but were turned away by representatives for the institute, according to the Times.
Then, on Monday, members of DOGE arrived again with Jackson. According to multiple outlets, citing representatives from USIP, the institute called the D.C. Metropolitan Police, but when they arrived they allowed Musk's team to enter the building.
USIP's chief security officer Colin O'Brien told CNN that when he went out to greet the police "they held the door open and allowed members of DOGE to enter the building, where they were also followed by 10 to 12 police officers, uniformed D.C. police officers."
Some USIP officials remained in the building after DOGE representatives were let in, including Moose. Police later forced him to leave the building, per CNN.
"Mr. Moose denied lawful access to Kenneth Jackson, the acting USIP president (as approved by the USIP board). The D.C. Police Department arrived on-site and escorted Mr. Jackson into the building. The only unlawful individual was Mr. Moose, who refused to comply, and even tried to fire USIP's private security team when said security team went to give access to Mr. Jackson," DOGE wrote in a post on X on Monday night.
Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) declared on X on Monday night that "I was at USIP tonight to conduct congressional oversight over DOGE's break-in. I spoke with Acting President & CEO Moose. USIP is an independent, non-profit entity and I will work to stop DOGE's illegal power grab."
Jeremy Konyndyk, the president of Refugees International, wrote on X: "if DOGE can do this to USIP, what's to stop them from breaking into offices of other NGOs that receive U.S. funds? Or law firms or media that annoy the president?"
Two Musk officials who gained entry to USIP on Monday were Nate Cavanaugh and Justin Aimonetti, the same DOGE staffers who last month forced entry to the U.S. African Development Foundation (USADF), which was also named in Trump's February order, per the Times.
In early March, staff with the USADF tried to keep DOGE staff from entering their offices in D.C. DOGE staff managed to gain entry after returning with U.S. Marshals.
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'Genocidal Actions' Persist in Gaza as Israel Blocks Aid and US Weapons Flow
"President Joe Biden must act now to make famine prevention a top priority and be prepared to deploy meaningful U.S. leverage—including pausing arms sales," said two humanitarian aid group leaders.
Apr 12, 2024
A week after Israeli officials promised the Biden administration they would open a border crossing and a port to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, relief organizations and the United Nations reported Friday that life-saving supplies are still being blocked, and warned that the White House must take more decisive action to force Israel to stop starving Palestinians.
The U.N. reported that just 212 aid trucks entered Gaza on Tuesday, far lower than the 467 reported by Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who promised to "flood Gaza with aid" after a tense phone call between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Joe Biden last Thursday.
The phone call came in response to Israel's bombing of a World Central Kitchen aid convoy that killed seven aid workers. On the call, Biden reportedly threatened to halt weapons deliveries unless a surge in humanitarian aid was allowed into Gaza.
But as The Guardian reported Friday, the Ashdod port has not been opened yet, and instead of opening the Erez crossing last Sunday as promised, Israel has opened another crossing into northern Gaza but has not yet allowed U.N. agencies to use it.
"Netanyahu scammed Biden again: A week after he promised to open the Erez crossing and Ashdod port to increase aid to Gaza, the [Israel Defense Forces] & port authorities say they NEVER received any instructions of this nature," said Muhammad Shehada, communications chief for Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, citing reporting from Israel's N12 channel.
The Guardian reports that Israel has set an ultimate target of 500 aid trucks per day to enter Gaza—the same amount that delivered relief to residents before the Israeli bombardment rendered the enclave's food system, healthcare facilities, and other public services inoperable.
"The call for 500 trucks, with a combination of commercial and humanitarian shipments, is the absolute minimum," Juliette Touma, communications director for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) told The Guardian. "Probably what Gaza needs is at least 1,000 trucks a day."
The U.N. found that just 141 aid trucks entered the enclave on Wednesday. The Washington Post reported that Israeli authorities have blocked aid deliveries containing items such as chocolate croissants, maternity kits, sleeping bags, stone fruits, and oxygen cylinders.
Jamie McGoldrick, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator, said Friday that "very limited" aid deliveries have continued to contribute to low birth weights in babies who have been born in northern Gaza in recent weeks.
"It's very easy for Israel to say, 'We've sent you 1,000 trucks so please deliver them inside Gaza,'" McGoldrick said, noting that Israel has held trucks up at checkpoints "for hours" and that many roads are not open to deliveries.
"At no point in time in the last month and more have we had three or even two of those roads working at the same time simultaneously," said McGoldrick.
The news that Israel has not allowed a "flood" of aid into Gaza since Biden threatened Netanyahu with an end to weapons transfers came days after Samantha Power, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), admitted to U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) that reports of famine in parts of Gaza are now "credible."
Save the Children confirmed on April 2 that at least 27 children have died of starvation and disease as a result of Israel's blockade, and U.N. agencies said in February that 5% of children under age 2 were acutely malnourished.
At least 33,634 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed by Israeli forces since October, with U.S. weapons used in much of the bombardment.
At Foreign Affairs on Friday, Refugees International's president, Jeremy Konyndyk, and vice president for programs and policy, Hardin Lang, wrote that "as negotiations about a econd cease-fire and hostages-for-prisoners swap gain steam, the United States has a crucial opportunity to press Israel to change course and allow a major famine-prevention effort."
Namely, they said, Biden must make good on his threat to cut off Israel's military aid—of which the U.S. is the largest international provider.
"The United States is likely the only outside power that can ensure a famine is avoided, given the leverage it has with its ally Israel," they wrote. "U.S. President Joe Biden must act now to make famine prevention a top priority and be prepared to deploy meaningful U.S. leverage—including pausing arms sales—if the Israeli government does not comply. Famine would not only constitute a humanitarian cataclysm; it would also represent a geopolitical failure that would damage U.S. credibility in the Middle East for years to come."
Konyndyk and Lang's call was echoed by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which said Power's comments must push the president to take action.
"Inducing a famine by besieging an entire population and slaughtering innocent civilians are acts which no one can ignore, let alone justify," said CAIR national executive director Nihad Awad. "President Biden and his administration are enabling this famine and the deliberate cruelty targeting the Palestinian people in Gaza. He must take action to prevent further atrocities by demanding an immediate cease-fire, securing full access to humanitarian aid, ending all weapons transfers and other funding for Israel, and holding the war criminals in the Netanyahu government accountable for their genocidal actions."
Also on Friday, a U.S. coalition of groups including the Working Families Party, the Service Employees International Union, and the National Education Association wrote to Biden and urged him to enforce the Foreign Assistance Act, which bars the government from providing military support to countries that restrict humanitarian aid deliveries.
Ending arms transfers "will send a clear message that the Netanyahu government is not above the law and that the U.S. will not stand by while the war kills innocent Palestinians and continues to drive escalation throughout the region," reads the letter. "U.S. law is unequivocal: Countries that obstruct U.S. humanitarian aid cannot receive U.S. military aid under the Foreign Assistance Act or the Arms Export Control Act."
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'Unconscionable': Biden Has Approved 100+ Arms Sales to Israel in Just Five Months
"When people ask, 'What do you want Joe Biden to do?' the answer is: Stop making these weapons deals," said one campaigner.
Mar 06, 2024
The Biden administration has approved more than 100 separate weapons sales to the Israeli government since its massive assault on the Gaza Strip began five months ago, transfers that did not require congressional notification because they were each below a certain dollar amount.
The Washington Post reported Wednesday that the sales, which were disclosed to lawmakers during a recent classified briefing, included "thousands of precision-guided munitions, small diameter bombs, bunker busters, small arms, and other lethal aid."
"Only two approved foreign military sales to Israel have been made public since the start of conflict: $106 million worth of tank ammunition and $147.5 million of components needed to make 155 mm shells," the Post added. "Those sales invited public scrutiny because the Biden administration bypassed Congress to approve the packages by invoking an emergency authority."
Jeremy Konyndyk, a former senior Biden administration official and the current president of Refugees International, told the newspaper that the number of sales the administration has approved over such a short period of time is "extraordinary" and "suggests that the Israeli campaign would not be sustainable without this level of U.S. support."
"The U.S. cannot maintain that, on the one hand, Israel is a sovereign state that's making its own decisions and we're not going to second guess them, and, on the other hand, transfer this level of armament in such a short time and somehow act as if we are not directly involved," Konyndyk added.
"Weapons to a government starving and displacing millions of civilians. Weapons to an army that has killed 25,000 women and children."
News of the secretive arms sales comes as human rights advocates and progressive lawmakers such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) are pressuring the Biden administration to cut off all military aid to Israel, pointing to U.S. law and White House policy barring the transfer of weapons to human rights violators.
Under the Foreign Assistance Act, the U.S. cannot provide aid to a country that "prohibits or otherwise restricts, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of United States humanitarian assistance."
U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller admitted during a press briefing on Tuesday that Israeli government ministers have blocked "the release of flour" and other aid into Gaza as much of the territory's population faces the imminent risk of famine—and as children die of starvation.
Miller admits what is preventing aid getting in to Gaza:"You have...ministers in the Israeli government block the release of flour...You have seen ministers of the Israeli government supporting protests that blocked aid from going in" despite this Biden hasn't used any leverage pic.twitter.com/SgWoxHn7LA
— HalalFlow (@halalflow) March 5, 2024
Yonah Lieberman, co-founder of the progressive Jewish advocacy group IfNotNow, noted that the Post's reporting shows the Biden administration has on average approved one arms sale to Israel every 36 hours since October 7, when Israel launched its large-scale assault on Gaza following a deadly Hamas-led attack.
"Weapons to a government starving and displacing millions of civilians. Weapons to an army that has killed 25,000 women and children," Lieberman wrote. "This is unconscionable. When people ask, 'What do you want Joe Biden to do?' the answer is: Stop making these weapons deals."
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Thousands of Babies Being Born Into 'Hell' in Gaza, Says UNICEF
"Humanity cannot allow this warped version of normal to persist any longer," said a UNICEF official. "Mothers and newborns need a humanitarian cease-fire."
Jan 19, 2024
With the Israel Defense Forces continuing to block supplies from reaching shelters, refugee camps, and hospitals in Gaza, humanitarian workers are warning that there is "no end in sight" for the horrors facing an estimated 55,000 pregnant women as well as postpartum parents and newborns.
Tess Ingram, a communications specialist for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), told reporters Friday that nearly 20,000 babies have been born in the three months since Israel began its bombardment of Gaza—an assault that has ostensibly been in response to Hamas' October 7 attack on southern Israel but has disproportionately targeted civilians in the enclave, with women and children making up 70% of the 24,762 people killed so far.
"Becoming a mother should be a time for celebration," Ingram said. "In Gaza, it's another child delivered into hell... Seeing newborn babies suffer, while some mothers bleed to death, should keep us all awake at night."
Only nine of Gaza's 35 hospitals are operational, and Agence France Presse reported that Emirati Hospital in Rafah is now providing care for "the vast majority of pregnant women in Gaza" as more than one million people have been displaced to the southern city since the war began.
Doctors and nurses at the hospital, who normally treat 30-40 pregnant patients daily, are caring for as many as 400 pregnant people, postpartum mothers, and newborns every day, the humanitarian group CARE told HuffPost. Emirati's only operating room, where two to three C-sections are normally performed each day, is now being used for nearly 20 C-sections per day.
"Becoming a mother should be a time for celebration. In Gaza, it's another child delivered into hell."
Overcrowding has forced hospital staff to discharge new mothers within three hours of having a Caesarean section—many of which are being performed without anesthesia or properly sanitized medical equipment, leading to a heightened risk of infection.
"'Will I survive childbirth? Will my child survive? What will happen to my other children?' These are very real dangers pregnant women and young mothers in Gaza have faced for the past 100 days, with no end in sight," Hiba Tibi, acting deputy regional director for the Middle East and North Africa for CARE, said last week.
After childbirth, mothers and their vulnerable newborns are returning to "inhumane" conditions in makeshift shelters or overcrowded camps, where a lack of food and safe drinking water is placing "approximately 135,000 children under two at risk of severe malnutrition," Ingram told reporters.
A woman named Fedaa Issa told the Middle East Eye this week about her experience returning to a makeshift tent in Khan Younis immediately after giving birth to her daughter on December 2.
"In the camp, she lacked the sanitation facilities to help her through the first few days and weeks of Aya’s life, and there was no proper sense of privacy," MEE reported. "Issa said that she and other women had no access to sanitary towels and instead risked infection by rewashing pieces of cloth in dirty water."
Without proper nutrients in her diet, Issa was unable to breastfeed and had to rely on formula to feed her newborn—which her family is struggling to afford.
"Humanity cannot allow this warped version of normal to persist any longer," said Ingram. "Mothers and newborns need a humanitarian cease-fire."
Ingram relayed to reporters the story of a woman she met in Gaza, Mashael, who was pregnant when her home was hit by an airstrike last month.
With her husband trapped under rubble for several days, Mashael realized after the bombing that her baby had stopped moving.
"She says she is sure now, about a month later, that the baby is dead," Ingram said, but Mashael has not been able to see a doctor to confirm the miscarriage or get treatment. "The situation of pregnant women and newborns in the Gaza Strip is beyond belief, and it demands intensified and immediate actions."
According to CARE, healthcare workers have seen a 300% increase in miscarriages since Israel's assault began.
Humanitarian groups say conditions have worsened in the last month, despite the passage of a U.N. Security Council resolution demanding increased aid for Gaza.
"Whatever marginal improvement there has been," Refugees International president Jeremy Konyndyk told HuffPost, "it's nowhere near the scale that's required at this point. Where there are improvements, they're modest and fragile—they could be undone by Israeli military actions or Israeli political decisions."
The Biden administration, which is helping to fund and arm the IDF and has vehemently defended its assault on Gaza as "self-defense," has said it is "pressing" Israel to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, where an average of just 100 aid trucks have been allowed in per day since October. About 500 trucks carried goods and supplies into the enclave daily before the current Israeli assault.
Despite the United States' insistence that it is pushing Israeli officials, a State Department document this week said the IDF is still denying requests to move food and medicine into northern Gaza, where 300,000 people are still living.
Konyndyk, who previously worked in the Obama and Biden administrations, told HuffPost that as long as Israel's bombardment continues, Gaza residents and those struggling to care for them "need the humanitarian equivalent of shock and awe."
"When the U.S. government is defending their record on this, their basic argument is they're making some incremental improvements," said Konyndyk. "That's like saying, 'We got three more buckets to fight the forest fire.' Whatever improvement that reflects, the pace of it is far, far outmatched by the rate of deterioration in the humanitarian situation."
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Global Aid Leaders to World: 'We Have Seen Nothing Like the Siege of Gaza'
"We are no strangers to human suffering—to conflict, to natural disasters, to some of the world's largest and gravest catastrophes," reads a joint op-ed calling for a cease-fire.
Dec 12, 2023
The leaders of some of the world's top humanitarian organizations wrote in a New York Times op-ed Tuesday that the spiraling humanitarian disaster created by Israel's blockade and incessant bombing of the Gaza Strip is more devastating than anything they've witnessed in decades of relief work across the globe.
"We are no strangers to human suffering—to conflict, to natural disasters, to some of the world's largest and gravest catastrophes," wrote the heads of CARE USA, Mercy Corps, the Norwegian Refugee Council, Oxfam America, Refugees International, and Save the Children U.S. "We were there when fighting erupted in Khartoum, Sudan. As bombs rained down on Ukraine. When earthquakes leveled southern Turkey and northern Syria. As the Horn of Africa faced its worst drought in years. The list goes on."
"We have seen nothing like the siege of Gaza," they continued. "Most of our organizations have been operating in Gaza for decades. But we can do nothing remotely adequate to address the level of suffering there without an immediate and complete cease-fire and an end to the siege. The aerial bombardments have rendered our jobs impossible. The withholding of water, fuel, food, and other basic goods has created an enormous scale of need that aid alone cannot offset."
The group of aid leaders, which includes a former Biden administration official, argued that a cease-fire is necessary to begin the arduous work of providing emergency relief to nearly two million displaced Gazans and rebuilding the territory's infrastructure, much of which has been demolished in what's been called "one of history's heaviest conventional bombing campaigns."
"A significant change in approach from the U.S. government is needed today to pull Gaza back from this abyss."
Singling out the Biden administration for vetoing a cease-fire resolution at the U.N. Security Council last week, the humanitarian leaders wrote Tuesday that "a significant change in approach from the U.S. government is needed today to pull Gaza back from this abyss."
"Among leaders in Washington, there is constant talk about preparing for the 'day after.' But if this relentless bombardment and siege continues, there will be no 'day after' for Gaza. It will be too late," they warned. "To stop Gaza's apocalyptic free fall, the Biden administration must take tangible measures like it does in other conflicts to up the ante with all parties to the conflict and bordering countries."
The aid leaders' plea comes as the death toll from Israel's U.S.-backed bombing campaign continues to rise and the cascading impacts of the assault—including widespread hunger and the alarming spread of infectious diseases—intensified over the past several days.
"Bloody diarrhea, jaundice, acute hepatitis, and respiratory infections. These are just some of the diseases spreading in the Gaza Strip, where the World Health Organization (WHO) says the health system is 'on its knees and collapsing," CNN reported Tuesday.
The U.N. estimates that nearly 85% of Gaza's population has been displaced by Israeli bombing, which is currently concentrated in southern Gaza. Fewer than a dozen of the territory's 36 hospitals are functioning.
"The harrowing events unfolding before us are shaping a global narrative that if unchanged, will reveal a legacy of indifference in the face of unspeakable suffering, bias in the application of the laws of conflict, and impunity for actors that violate international humanitarian law," the aid leaders wrote Tuesday. "The U.S. government must act now—and fight for humanity."
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